Alice Walker Disinvited to speak at University of Michigan

ZIONIST PRESSURE AT WORK:
Alice Walker disinvited from University of Michigan over ‘Israel comments’

Submitted by Ali Abunimah 
Thu, 08/15/2013 

Alice Walker speaks in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

(Lazar Simeonov / TEDxRamallah)
 

World-renowned American author Alice Walker has been disinvited from giving a speech at the University of Michigan because a donor objects to her views on Israel, the agent negotiating the contract was told.

Walker, the Pultizer Prize winning author of The Color Purple, posted on her blog an excerpt of a letter from the agentinforming her that the invitation to keynote the 50th anniversary celebration of the Center for the Education of Women at the University of Michigan had been withdrawn.

The agent wrote:

I’m saddened to write this because I’m a proponent of free speech and have been brought up to allow everyone to have their say. But I also realize that there are other considerations that institutions are faced with. This afternoon I was contacted by the University of Michigan instructing me to withdraw their invitation due to the removal of funding from the donors, because of their interpretation of Ms. Walker’s comments regarding Israel. They are not willing to fund this program and the university/Women’s center do not have the resources to finance this on their own. They are deeply regretful but I wanted to let you know immediately either way. I hope you can appreciate the fact that I’m uncomfortable even having to send this email in the first place. Hopefully we can work together again down the road. Thanks for understanding. I wish things had turned out differently.

Calling the withdrawn invitation “Censorship by Purse String,” Walker wrote, “Such behavior, as evidenced by the donors, teaches us our weakness, which should eventually (and soon) show us our strength: women must be in control of our own finances. Not just in the family, but in the schools, work force, and everywhere else. Until we control this part of our lives, our very choices, in any and every area, can be denied us.”

Walker is listed as one of the speakers represented by the American Program Bureau agency.

Alice Walker not “optimum choice”

Gloria D. Thomas, director of the Center for the Education of Women, acknowledged that Walker had been disinvited, but said that the matter was a “misunderstanding.” In an email to The Electronic Intifada, Thomas wrote:

The [Walker’s] blog was a result of an unfortunate misunderstanding. As director of the Center for the Education of Women (CEW), I decided to withdraw our invitation because I didn’t think Ms. Walker would be our optimum choice for our 50th anniversary.

Our 50th anniversary funding is assured. All donations, for this and other events, are accepted with no provisos or prohibitions regarding free speech. In fact, in a conversation with one of Ms. Walker’s friends/representatives, I indicated that I would be willing to speak with other units around campus to serve as a possible co-sponsor for a lecture by Ms. Walker in the near future.

Asked if a speaker had been chosen to replace Walker, Thomas wrote, “No contract has been signed yet. This information will be made available on our website once the contract is confirmed.”

Walker: supporter of Palestinian rights

In recent years, Walker has become increasingly outspoken in her support of Palestinian rights, sometimes likening Israel’s abuses to the Jim Crow racist system she grew up with in the southern United States.

Walker has written about her visit to Gaza, and participated in the June 2011 solidarity flotilla that attempted to reach the territory besieged by Israel, which led to her being demonized by the Israeli army.

Her position on boycott has also been deliberately distorted by Israeli media.

Walker has campaigned for other artists, most recently Alicia Keys, to respect the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS).

In her letter to Keys, Walker wrote:

I have written over the years that explain why a cultural boycott of Israel and Israeli institutions (not individuals) is the only option left to artists who cannot bear the unconscionable harm Israel inflicts every day on the people of Palestine, whose major “crime” is that they exist in their own land, land that Israel wants to control as its own.

Could Walker, one of the most celebrated figures in American letters, now be paying the price of refusing to be silent about Palestine?

Poems for Palestine, Egypt, Syria by Marvin X and Mohja Kahf

 PALESTINE by Marvin X (Imam Maalik El Muhajir)

I am not an Arab, I am not a Jew
Abraham is not my father, Palestine is not my home
But I would fight any man
Who kicked me out of my house
To dwell in a tent
I would fight
To the ends of the earth
Someone who said to me
I want your house
Because my father lived here
Two thousand years ago
I want your land

Because my father lived here
Two thousand years ago.
Jets would not stop me
From returning to my home
Uncle toms would not stop me
Cluster bombs would not stop me
Bullets I would defy.
No man can take the house of another
And expect to live in peace
There is no peace for thieves
There is no peace for those who murder
For myths and ancient rituals
Wail at the wall

Settle in "Judea" and "Samaria"
But fate awaits you
You will never sleep with peace

You will never walk without listening.
I shall cross the River Jordan
With Justice in my hand
I shall return to Jerusalem
And establish my house of peace,
Thus said the Lord.
© 2000 by Marvin X (Imam Maalik El Muhajir)

After Friday Prayers

Egypt: After Friday Prayers 

After Friday Prayers
After salat
salaam-alaikum
al humdulilah
we shall meet in the streets
to shout no more pharaoh
no more presidents for life
no more American aide for guns and tear gas
no more uncle abdullah
no more
no more reactionary theology
no honor killings
suppression of women's dignity
no more
after Friday prayers
in Tunisia
Cairo
Yemen
Sudan
Jordan
Saudi Arabia
Persian Gulf
no more
after Fatihah/Ikhlas
we shall meet the guns of Pharaoh Mubarak
we shall meet the tear gas
even death even
we shall meet
and go to paradise
for freedom
we have no fear of Pharaoh's guns/tear gas
no fear no more
we are mostly young and invincible
we have the model
we shall meet in the streets
to live again
to breathe
to love
to take control of our lives
to feed our families
to fly in the sun of freedom and liberty.
--Marvin X

1/27/11

To Egypt With Love

Dedicated to my son, Abdul El Muhajir (Darrel P. Jackmon, RIP)

He studied at the American University in Egypt

fell in love in Egypt

some Ghanian ambassador's daughter

told him don't give no woman keys to your apartment

he never did

not even the ambassador's daughter, he told me

he loved Egypt

spoke the language

graduated UC Berkeley in Arabic and Middle Eastern Literature

said the Africans were slaves throughout the Middle East

Arabs took their passports

making them slaves

racism was pervasive

unsustainable

yet understandable

they are not the aboriginal Arabs

not the Arabs of Sabah

Queen of Sabah's land

who ruled from Canaan to Jerusalem to the Persian Gulf

Queen of Sabah

who fascinated King Solomon

My son loved Arabic, Persian

Fulbright fellowship to University of Damascus

Syrian intelligence  interrogated him daily

why was he hanging around those filthy Palestinians

Why did he swim at the American embassy 

Dad, they tried to recruit me for the C.I.A

Mormons controlled the US Embassy

wanted me to be a Mormon

Toward the end my son became a Mormon

lived with Eldridge Cleaver

himself a Mormon, for a time

said Eldridge got strange phone calls

from strange people

we know Eldridge was dr. strangelove

The Ghanaian woman came to see my son in Cali

I do not know what happened

but she went home

In the end he loved a Portuguese woman

he loved Brazil

said he wanted to live in Bahia

dance Condomble 

a man of the world

at his funeral came his friends

no black man no black woman

Asians whites

after all

he was a man of the world

what could he say to a nigguh in the ghetto

his travels to Africa, Egypt, Jerusalem, Brazil,Japan, what could he say to a ghetto nigguh

In Japan, he said they teach the women to say three things:

yes, thank you and I'm sorry

Japanese woman he got pregnant said no to his black baby

so she could go home in peace

family told her don't bring no black baby home.

Abdul loved the Middle East

loved Persian

poetry

the rhythms of the language

poets who dervish.

Egypt may fall today tomorrow

my son will be pleased

Pharaoh Mubarak is no more

the regime is history

what a story to tell my son

who walked into a train

in his midnight madness

Dr. Hare said he was like Malcolm and Martin

he was 38, they were 39

he self destructed

suicide and homicide is the same

different sides of the same coin.

Let Egypt arise for the sons and daughters who have suffered

a long suffering that has come to an end.

Mubarak a page in history

a pitiful note in the eternal song of a people.

--Marvin X

1/31/11

Two Poems for the People of Syria

Oh, Mohja
how much water can run from rivers to sea
how much blood can soak the earth
the guns of tyrants know no end
a people awakened are bigger than bullets
there is no sleep in their eyes
no more stunted backs and fear of broken limbs
even men, women and children are humble with sacrifice
the old the young play their roles
with smiles they endure torture chambers
with laughs they submit to rape and mutilations
there is no victory for oppressors
whose days are numbered
as the clock ticks as the sun rises
let the people continue til victory
surely they smell it on their hands
taste it on lips
believe it in their hearts
know it in their minds
no more backwardness no fear
let there be resistance til victory.
--Marvin X/El Muhajir

Syrian poet/professor Dr. Mohja Kahf

Oh Marvin, how much blood can soak the earth?

The angels asked, “will you create a species who will shed blood

and overrun the earth with evil?” 

And it turns out “rivers of blood” is no metaphor: 

see the stones of narrow alleys in Duma

shiny with blood hissing from humans? Dark

and dazzling, it keeps pouring and pumping

from the inexhaustible soft flesh of Syrians,

and neither regime cluster bombs from the air,

nor rebel car bombs on the ground,

ask them their names before they die. 

They are mowed down like wheat harvested by machine,

and every stalk has seven ears, and every ear a hundred grains.

They bleed like irrigation canals into the earth.

Even one little girl in Idlib with a carotid artery cut

becomes a river of blood. Who knew she could be a river 

running all the way over the ocean, to you,

draining me of my heart? And God said to the angels, 

“I know what you know not.” But right now,

the angels seem right. Cut the coyness, God;

learn the names of all the Syrians.

See what your species has done.

--Mohja Kahf

The Egyptian Tragedy

Diop taught us there is no African tragedy, only comedy, thus in the end we know all shall be well for the Egyptian masses. At this hour things look bleak in the land of pharaohs. For sure the deposing of the Muslim Brotherhood regime will not bring power to the people but power to elements of the previous regime of pharaoh Mubarak in the form of the US supported military who claims it got rid of the first democratically elected president in Egyptian history in the name of the people, but if we follow the money trail, we know President Morsi was rolling on the money grabbers in the military who control the economy. Thus what is happening in Egypt is about economics not politics. The military has long been in control of the economics and were not about to allow the Muslim Brotherhood to displace their fundamental role as autocrats. 

The Brotherhood won the election because it was the best organized, but elements of the old regime, including the military and judiciary, had no intention to allow it to rule uninterrupted. The Brotherhood slogan was Islam is the Solution and it had every right to carry out its plans for an Islamic society. This was its democratic right, if we truly believe in such, but we know money overrides  politics in the real world. Even the 1.3 billion dollars from the USA does not match the 12 billion promised from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, so the army went for the biggest pot under the guise of fulfilling a mandate from the ignorant masses.

For sure, Egypt is a nation divided between urban liberals and rural based Islamists. The military has sided with the liberals in a deceptive move that shall soon reveal their true mission to restore business as usual, i.e., to placate the West and other reactionary forces in the geopolitical game, namely Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf states. 

Time has proven any suppression of the Brotherhood shall be short-lived. Nassar, Sadat and Mubarak tried suppression yet they survived and we predict they shall overcome the present morass. We pray next time around they will broaden their perspective to include a true desire to consider a more inclusionary regime. 

Fundamental Islam is a reaction to colonialism and neo-colonialism. What is needed is an ideology that includes a recognition of Islamic culture in the political realm. Turkey might be an example. 

Western liberalism will find little room in the so called Arab Spring, for the West had proven itself too hypocritical and malevolent, a contradiction to itself and its so called long espoused principles of freedom, justice and equality. The Arabs are quickly discovering Western style democracy, including the right to vote, is not the panacea for what ills their world. More than anything, the Arabs need justice, a sharing of the wealth and human dignity for all, including men and women. They need not ape the West because the West has yet to impart true freedom, justice and equality to the descendants of Africans who were victims of the American slave system. Alas, America has no intention to provide a living wage to its citizens, whether white, black, brown, gay/lesbian or straight. America shall continue its futile mantra of global free trade, aka, wage slavery. America should thus prepare for its own Spring,

for as with the Arabs, dissatisfaction demands change. 

America has never been an honest broker in the Middle East but has sought to suck oil from the region

so greedy Americans can drive their gas guzzlers down freeways bumper to bumper. She tells the Palestinians to make peace with Israel but we know without justice there shall never be peace!

America suffers a myopia so severe she will not even declare a coup has taken place in Egypt  when the entire worlds knows what happened. This refusal to acknowledge reality is the tragic flaw America suffers and we know from the study of classic drama that self destruction is the ultimate result of such hubris. This addiction to delusion for political expediency shall come to haunt America like that whirlwind Marcus Garvey predicted!

Bay Area Celebrates Post News Group Publisher Paul Cobb's 70th Birthday

The Bay Area celebrated the 70th birthday of Paul Cobb, publisher of the Post News Group, including the Oakland Post. Paul Cobb grew up in West Oakland  (a childhood friend of poet Marvin X), graduated from

Paul Cobb and SNCC leader Julian Bond, circa 1965, Atlanta

Howard University and spent time in the southern Civil Rights Movement, then returned to the Bay Area and was a founding member of the Donald Warden's Afro-American Association (Maulana Ron Karenga was the Los Angeles representative), the organization that gave birth to the Black Panthers (Bobby Seale, Huey Newton, et al) and the west coast Black Arts Movement (Marvin X). Paul established OCCUR, a social activist organization that fought for jobs on state highway projects. Paul went to jail protesting the non-hiring of Blacks. He also went to jail demanding the Oakland Public Schools hire a black superintendent, which it eventually did, Marcus Foster
(assassinated by the SLA) and later Dr. Ruth Love. 

Paul worked at the Oakland Post, Oakland Tribune and served on the School Board. He eventually bought the Oakland Post and eventually hired Chauncey Bailey as editor. Chauncey Bailey was assassinated in broad daylight on the way to work. Paul did not accept that young black men were solely responsible but puts added blame of the Oakland Police Department, especially when it became known an OPD officer mentored the young men. This same officer officiated the crime scene and led a raid on Your Black Muslim Bakery. Ironically, the raid was scheduled the day before Chauncey was murdered, but was delayed until after. Paul was never called to testify on the activities of his editor. The DA refused to consider the police connection.

Marvin X and Paul Cobb, childhood friends (Marvin writes in the Oakland Post occasionally)

His birthday party was held at Geoffrey's Inner Circle and attended by many Bay Area activists, educators and professionals, including the godfather of California politics, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, former Oakland School Superintendent Dr. Ruth Love, journalist Jerri Lange, publicist Laniece Jones, gallery owner Joyce Gordon, educator/coach Benny Tapscott, Arif Khatib, Maxine and Will Ussery, Ed Howard, Marvin X, et al.

Of course Paul was accompanied by his wife, Gay, who financed the purchase of the Post News Group and is director of Oakland PIC (Private Industry Council).

 San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown attended his longtime friend's 70th birthday party

                                       

Marvin X in New Black Arts Movement Anthology S.O.S.--Calling All Black People

Dear Marvin X,

I write to you on behalf of Prof. John Bracey Jr. (UMass Amherst),  Prof. James Smethurst (UMass Amherst), and Sonia Sanchez.

Your work is considered to be included in the forthcoming book "S.O.S  - Calling All Black People: A Black Arts Movement Reader". Please,  find attached the editors letter and the permission form(s) for the  publication of your contribution(s). You can sign the form(s) and  return a copy to us electronically by responding to this email and/or  to the mailing address indicated in the letter.

Please, confirm or inform us about a valid mailing address where the  letter can be sent to.

We greatly appreciate your contribution.

Best,

Flávia Santos de Araújo

PhD Candidate - Department of Afro-American Studies
  University of Massachusetts
  326 New Africa House
  180 Infirmary Way
  Amherst, MA 01003